The Sands of Delmaria

Tomb Raider meets Indiana Jones meets The Mummy

House Bluskul

The Bluskuls
Descended from an ancient warrior line, the Bluskuls were a small, semi-nomadic tribe of Freefolk. They moved with over their territory with precision, following a pattern that only they knew and that somehow always led them to small oases. The Bluskuls were secular and protective but this was often mistaken for over-territorial and aggressive due to the poor reputation of Orcs.

Physical Description
On the odd occasion that an outsider encountered a friendly Bluskul, they noted their distinctive features. Almost all of them were orcs (with a few half orcs and humans thrown in), and they all wielded the same distinctive blades; a slender, slightly curved blade with one flat edge for blocking and another keen edge for slashing. The assumed leaders would wear heavy armor but moved in it as if it was weightless. They all wore their hair long and bound at the back. Instead of the heavy boot often worn by desert dwellers, the Bluskuls instead wore sandles made of a fibrous material.

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Laws and Traditions_
The Bluskuls had no written history, instead they were great orators that revered storytellers of all kinds. Bluskuls were also practitioners of calligraphy, an art ignored by the rest of Delmaria. No Bluskul was allowed to wield a blade until they could perform calligraphy to the satisfaction of their elders. The Bluskuls were known to often refer to something called the Madness, which some have theorized as either the innate viciousness of Orcs or some long standing curse.

The tradition revered above all else was that of the Odachi blade. This blade was far longer than the traditional Bluskul sword and only one existed. Made of an ancient steel that cannot be replicated, it held a supernaturally sharp edge that could cut through metal like paper. It was held by the leader of the Bluskuls and it was held that if it was ever lost in battle, the Bluskuls would stop at nothing to retrieve it.

They also seemed to follow a strict moral code that governed all life but that was rarely stated in full to outsiders. A few key points have been recorded over the years:

Make your word iron, a Bluskul that cannot keep its word is no Bluskul at all

Treat your enemies with honor, there is no victory in a broken foe

Do not dwell in the past, move ever forward

Better to die than to surrender to the Madness
There are many other unwritten laws but nobody has ever recorded them.

The End of the Tribe
Few know how the Bluskuls met their end. A small caravan found their bodies scattered around a small oasis stained with their blood. A quick investigation indicated that they had been ambushed by another Freefolk tribe. Tracks showed that a few Bluskuls had managed to survive but of a tribe of at least a hundred, less than a dozen survived.

Rumors would surface many years later of a small group of strange Freefolk that had settled in Farrain. This orcish group wielded strange blades and seemed obsessed with personal honor.

The Rise of House Bluskul
Many new noble houses arose after the Red Scale Betrayel, one of these was House Bluskul. A small family that owned several trade caravans, it provided supplies vital to the continued survival of Farrain after the siege. In return for this service, the head of the family; Darahnchi’Yo Bluskul was named as Lord Bluskul and the family rose into nobility.